tatey.com

This evening I had a pleasure to attend to my mother’s “broken” computer. “Oh, the internet doesn’t work — I can’t access my e-mail”. You know, the usual statement you really don’t want to hear. Trouble-shooting is a pain in the arse, and it’s one of the most least interesting tasks you can perform.

I jump on to her computer to start the trouble-shoot process. Immediately, I realise that someone has loaded a new operating system on the machine. Low and behold, it’s a counterfeit copy of Windows Vista. WTF? This machine was previously installed with Ubuntu Linux, an OS that my mother is most familiar with. Furthermore, she also purchased a new ADSL modem on the recommendation of whoever “fixed” her computer. Funnily enough, the internet is *still* broken. My mother explained that the “tech” took the computer and returned it to her as-is. I’ve always stressed the importance of contacting me first, but she usually relies on the advice of her [misinformed] friends. Admittedly, my mother and I aren’t particularly close — it’s not often that we talk.

At any rate, if the “tech” had bothered to diagnose anything, he’d have noticed that there is no sync between the ADSL Modem and the ISP. Wouldn’t that clearly indicate an issue with the hardware, phone line, telecommunications company; or the ISP? I’m unable to conclude how wiping a perfectly legitimate Ubuntu installation in favour of Windows Vista would “solve” her internet connection issues. I also found that he had replaced the DVD+/-RW optical drive with a CD-R optical drive. To top matters off, he had incorrectly configured the resolution for the display.

In addition, he’s wiped all of her e-mails and family photo’s. Way to go, moron. He also recommended that mother should purchase a new computer, because her existing machine is incapable of utilising Vista to it’s maximum potential. Again, WTF? FYI, it’s an AMD Athlon64 something something, with 1GB of RAM and a 80GB HDD. Mother browses the web, reads her e-mail and occasionally chats on IM. Vista… yeah right.

I’m so angry at this tech. Now I have to wipe her computer and install Ubuntu Linux again. At least installing Ubuntu Linux is 10x easier than Windows.

Every website on the internet use the same fonts. Infact, they’re the same fonts we’ve been using since Microsoft released it’s “Core fonts for the web” in the mid 1990’s. If you’re a designer, and you’ve ever wanted to use a particular font. Too bad, you can’t; there’s no way to ensure that users will have your desired font installed. Thankfully you can degrade gracefully. However, the original style that the designer intended is lost.

Opera is apparently implementing support for “Web fonts” in an upcoming version of its browser. As apart of CSS3, designers and developers will be able to specify downloadable fonts in their stylesheets which will reside in the browser’s cache. This opens many possibilities!

Unfortunately, I’m concerned that it may be abused. How do you prevent someone from choosing an awful, illegible font on their web page? Interestingly enough, other concerns include the distribution of fonts under their many licences and support from other browsers.

Clagnut’s blog has more information on the upcoming web fonts.

I’m a night owl. On a typical day I’m up until approximately 1-2am, before waking up between 10-11am. Unfortunately, this is not how the “real world” functions, and it results in clashes. I have an incredible “To-Do” list, that only ever seems to pile up, rather than being completed. In an attempt to become more productive, I’ve decided to go to bed early so that I can get up between 6:30 and 7am.

Previously, I had been very reluctant to break the habit until last night. Our entire neighbourhood lost power at 8pm, I had no idea what to do. My work and entertainment revolves around computers and the Internet. I was completely lost. It was that boring that I took the dog for a walk.

At around 9pm, the power had not returned and I was unable to complete what I was working on. Finally, I gave up and went to bed. This has turned out to be a blessing in disguise.

This morning I woke up at 6:30am, and it’s been one of my most productive days in a long time. I managed to complete an entire XHTML/CSS slice (Including cross-browser compatibility testing) in under five hours. Admittedly, if it was my design (Or a well thought out one) it would have been under three (That’s another story). In addition, I managed to complete other tasks on my “To-Do” list and make time for friends and family in the evening.

To be honest, I’m looking forward to getting up early again tomorrow for another productive day.

I arrived back from the city on Friday afternoon with a big, brown box.

After carefully removing the seals, I encountered another big box.

A peek inside.

Low and behold, a wrapped iMac.

Introducing my Apple iMac, featuring a 24″ display. The back is as elegant as the front.

First boot, it works!

After relocating my desktop computer and cleaning the work desk, my iMac sits nicely.

Specifications:

• 24″ LCD Display (1920×1200)
• Intel Core 2 Duo 2.16GHz
• 2GB DDR2 667
• nVidia 7300GT
• 250GB SATA 7200RPM HDD
• Built-in bluetooth, wireless and webcam

I purchased the iMac with the intention of becoming my workstation. I place an emphasis on work. The display is amazing, it’s insanely huge and the colours are vibrant. I haven’t had any difficulty adjusting from my dual 17″ LCD displays, an issue that I was concerned about.

Ultimately, I’m more than pleased with my purchase. If you’re interested in additional pictures, you can take a look here.

Chris pointed me to a “File renaming script“. If you’re someone like me, then you probably have entire seasons of TV episodes on your HTPC. Often these episodes are correctly categorised in a format similar to “TV Show/Season X”. However, the individual file names of each episode are usually inconsistent, full of silly tags and lacking the episode title. This makes finding TV episodes overwhelming and confusing. Certainly more difficult than it should have to be.

The program available on this page is designed to intelligently rename tv series’s video files on a PC. You provide the program with a folder full of video files that all belong to the same TV series, and it goes off and searches the web for the episode listings and renames all the files so they have a consistent format (i.e. “SeriesName 1×01 - Episode title”) without any of the usual filename cruft (”…DVD-Screener.AC3.[htdv].XviD.lol…” etc).

If you’ve always been seeking an easy method to automatically rename your TV episodes in to a consistent format, than this is your answer. It’s available as a Windows executable or a platform independent Perl script.

Towards the end of 2006, my brother opted to import a vehicle from Japan. Finally, after six months of waiting he arrived from central Queensland late this morning in his 1997 Toyota Chaser.

Typically, I’ve never shown much interest towards cars as I favour motorbikes. None the less, I can still appreciate an aesthetically pleasing, fast and well built vehicle. This is certainly how I’d describe my brother’s car. He has a few surprises planned. I’ll ask him to share more information later. In the mean time, you may be interested in viewing the gallery album.

The other night I had the pleasure of attending an exhibition held by a client at their premises. As apart of the exhibition, they were seeking to display a slideshow of their products. I agreed to supply and configure a display on the condition that Bottlebrush was permitted to advertise at regular intervals. After an agreement had been reached I arranged for a brand new high definition 40″ LCD television. The entire slideshow was configured on my iBook.

Over 200 people attended the exhibition! There was food and wine going around, lots of speeches and general socialising. I thoroughly enjoyed myself, and it was a great experience. However, it would be unfair to take all the credit for myself. My father’s company, BJ’s Sound & Lighting kindly provided Bottlebrush with the display free of charge. Furthermore, this could not have been achieved with out the help of Dennis, an employee of BJ’s.

Following up from my previous entry, I stumbled upon an organisation named “PrintSmart Graphics” who specialise in print design, modular display systems and printer cartridges. As it turns out, Daniel, a mate from high school is the in-house graphic designer for PrintSmart Graphics. I developed the business card in Adobe Illustrator CS2 (It’s not FOSS, please don’t hate me) and took the data file + TTF fonts to his workplace. There, we made some minor adjustments and produced a PDF proof which we tested. When I was satisfied with the end result, the the design was sent off for print. Daniel contacted me today, and informed me that the cards were ready to be collected. I was very excited.

I’m very pleased with the final result. What do you think?